Book Review: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R.Covey

Why did I pick it up in the first place?
I just lost a close family member to chronic disease, and also lost my job due to my immigration status, I am short on goals but abundant in time for the first time in my adult life. And this book falls into my hand naturally.
What is the book all about?
Here are the 7 habits the book talks about, my translation in parenthesis:
1. Be proactive (You need to be in control of your life)
2. Begin with end in mind (Find out the things that matter most in your life)
3. Put first things first (How to manage your time)
4. Think Win/Win (How to manage your interpersonal relationship)
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood ( How to communicate with people)
6. Synergize ( How to manage team work )
7. Sharpen the saw ( How to renew yourself )
What I like?
All. It is not just a how-to type of time management book, it dives to the core of an effective life style: principle-centered, value-driven approach. It asks you to think about long-term life goals and from there find out your life principles, and based on those principles to organize and manage your life. It wrinkled with examples from author’s teaching and training experience. A thought provoking book. On top of that, the author also provides suggestions to implement and practice the 7 habits in your life. Very practical book too.
What I dislike?
The author coined P/C and P throughout the book, yet the definition of them are not easily found. The index doesn’t help with finding either. So just you know, P/C means Production Capacity, P means Production.
Conclusion
Highly recommend.

What difference does it make to be born in America(Continued)

The difference lies in the economy and what a difference it makes. Just read this and you realize the pressure a Chinese kid endures. In America, pressure to succeed in adulthood is also high, but at least kids are free from it mostly.In China, it starts way earlier in life. Do you know how many Chinese parents spend their whole life savings to send their kids abroad so that they can stand a chance in competition?

What difference does it make to be born in America(By Daddy again)

Smart kid seeks self identity at very early age. That is the case for Shannon. She makes a lot of comparisons between herself and other kids to get a concept of who she is and what makes her different to others. One interesting question she asked me lately is: what makes her different than the Chinese kids born in China? That gets me thinking: What difference does it make to be born in America?
(To be continued ...)

Thinking vs Talking(by Dad)

Shannon likes to talk. And some of her teachers think it is a weakness of her. Well, I beg to differ. She talks a lot because that is the way she thinks. She thinks out loud and likes to bounce around her idea with others. It is a not a weakness, it is a strength. When people thinks silently, a lot of effort are spent on keeping notes of short ends and making sure the thinking flows in a confined and focused way. It is not a very efficient way of thinking, at least in my own experience, when I think silently, my thinking tends to flow in all direction and sometimes staggers in one point and not moving ahead. By thinking out loud and communicating with other people, you essentially offset to your listeners the task of keeping the thinking focused and making sure it is moving forward.

The question is how to effectively guide her thinking and talking so that the thinking process move forward and move fast. In other words, ask her good questions.

Some Ideas to Toy Around

To write a book, you need to first come up with a subject. Here are some of ideas that my dad and I have come up with:
1. A history of the neighborhood where we live( this is my dad's idea, kind of boring, don't you think?)

To be continued....